Social sciences

Role making among married Mexican American women: issues of class and ethnicity

Article Abstract:

This article discusses how married Mexican American women are redefining their roles and conjugal relationships. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework, the author held in-depth interviews with 75 Mexican American couples in Austin and Corpus Christi, Texas, and conducted participant observation of many others. The data indicate that contrary to previous reports, married women are not passive, but have actually taken the lead in role making. The working-class women studied were seeking separate identities from their husbands, something the business-professional women had already attained. The women experienced strain from the changes in their lives, and faced discrimination based on both their gender and ethnicity. The author calls for recognition of the diversity among families in minority groups, of the resistance to change minority-group women face by being "twice a minority," and of the need to examine organizational structures not only from management's perspective, but also from that of the social groups involved. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The social rights and responsibilities of pregnant women: an application of Parsons's sick role model

Article Abstract:

A study sought to identify the role expectations ascribed to pregnancy, and to examine whether such expectations differed across categories of socioeconomic status, age, race, and gender. In particular, the adequacy of Parsons's model of the sick role for describing social expectations for pregnant women was analyzed. For each of the four components of Parsons's sick role, items were developed for a questionnaire administered to a sample of 329 adults in a metropolitan community. The results indicate that for the vast majority of the respondednts, the behavior expected of pregnant women is similar to Parsons's sick role. A factor analysis of item responses, however, reveals that they are not unidimensional. Furthermore, significant variation occurred across categories of socioeconomic status, gender, race, and age in the extent to which respondents ascribed the four components of the sick role to pregnancy. Policy implications of these findings are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Role taking and the study of majority/minority relationships

Article Abstract:

This article presents the major theoretical issues concerning 'role taking' and 'role making,' particularly as these relate to relationships between majority and minority groups. The author examines the barriers researchers and others face when seeking to take the roles of others, and finds that we must recognize how ethnic and/or gender differences affect role taking. Three problem areas are examined: circumstances in which one group has more power than another, unexamined roles, and contradictory role expectations. The author concludes that role taking and role making have major methodological implications, and that further analysis of these concepts is essential to our understanding of the relationships among persons from different sectors of society. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)